Genealogy, Narrative, and the Politics of Naming in Toni Morrison''''s Song of Solomon

• Main Authors: Wei Chou, 周薇
• Other Authors: Shuli Chang
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2003
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/77265225178970398711

碩士 === 國立中山大學 === 外國語文學系研究所 === 91 === Abstract Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon deals with the African Americans’ history of fighting for self-independence, while exposing their difficulties in forming a viable cultural identity. Focusing on the politics of naming, the motif of flight, and the constitution of African American manhood, Toni Morrison in this novel aims to provide a different reading/writing of African American history whereupon her people can develop an alternative strategy of identification politics. In this thesis, I problematize the notion of democracy—the ordained rights of human beings to pursuit liberty, happiness and prosperity—by articulating the idea of the American Dream with African Americans’ experiences of self-realization in a so-called democratic society. The purpose is to discuss whether or not African Americans can reverse and utilize their marginalized position as a critical stance for self-articulation to undo the racists’ misnaming on African American people. With a special emphasis on Milkman’s improvisation of the meanings of his family name, Dead, I discuss how the African Americans’ distinctive way of double-talk can facilitate them to negotiate the apparent dualism to inscribe their hybridized identity and how this kind of creativity can help them produce an alternative narrative of their traumatizing as well as truncated history. Also, I intend to analyze both the limitation and liability of conventional psychoanalytic paradigm which is blind to the specificity of African American manhood and the problems peculiar to African American family. Though it is an undeniable historical fact that the African Americans do suffer from the aftermath of plantation slavery, they should be able to empower themselves by re-imagining a collective ancestry as a strategy to formulate an applicable identification politics. While narrating an inspiring genealogy for her people, Toni Morrison wraps up this novel with an open ending. This arrangement suggests to her people that the significations of their cultural identities be opened to further contestation and re-definition.